This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for analyzing impurities in liquid, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus for analyzing impurities in various kinds of liquid such as ultra-pure water adapted to classify the impurities into soluble substance, insoluble substance and impurities in the form of bubbles, and to measure their concentrations separately.
It is known that photoacoustic spectroscopy is useful for a highly sensitive spectroscopic analyzing method, when it is applied to liquid samples and used as a colorimetric analyzing apparatus. Shohei Oda, Tsuguo Sawada and Hitoshi Kamada have reported in an article entitled "Determination of Ultra Trace Cadmium by Laser-Induced Photoacoustic Absorption Spectrometry", Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 50, p. 865 (1978), that cadmium can be analyzed down to 12 ppt in the form of a complex salt with dithizone by means of a photoacoustic analyzing apparatus. Further, Shohei Oda, Tsuguo Sawada, Toyohiko Moriguchi and Hitoshi Kamada have reported that when the photoacoustic analyzing method is applied to suspension of barium sulfate its detection limit is 30 ppb in an article entitled "Analysis of Turbid Solution by Laser-Induced Photoacoustic Spectroscopy", Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 52, p. 650 (1980). It has been shown in this example that the calibration curve of the suspension doesn't depend on the diameter of particles, when light modulation frequency is set at 33 Hz. That is, it has been shown that the photoacoustic analyzing method has a characteristic that it is not influenced by the diameter of suspended particles.
However, on the other hand, it has been verified by the present inventors that the phase of photoacoustic signal depends on the diameter of suspended particles and that the diameter and the concentration of suspended particles can be measured by the photoacoustic analyzing method.
In this way, it has been verified that the photoacoustic analyzing method can be applied to highly sensitive analyzing and is useful not only for analysis of true solutions but also for that of suspensions. However, no technique has been known, which is adapted to measure separately not only insoluble impurities but also soluble ones (impurities in the form of ions) in liquid, utilizing such characteristics as described above of the photoacoustic analyzing method. This is because theoretical relations between measurement conditions such as the light modulation frequency for the photoacoustic analyzing apparatus and information obtained under those conditions are not known.
Furthermore, the amount of impurities contained in ultra-pure water is on the order of ppt's and this concentration level is below the lower detection limit of the conventional analyzing method such as chromatography, colorimetry, etc. Consequently, it is difficult to apply the prior art analyzing methods to analysis of impurities in ultra-pure water.
As stated above, none of the conventional impurity analyzing methods is adapted to analyze any kind of impurities such as fine particles whose concentration is very low (insoluble substance), substance in the form of ions (soluble substance), and further impurities in the form of bubbles. Furthermore there exists no apparatus for analyzing impurities in liquid permitting not only these analyses but alsl on-line measurements.